The Real Road Rage!

Perhaps it is time for the entire population to retake their drivers license test or do we just need more roads?

There is a serious problem happening in our country that you’ll hear in private discussions but not in public forums. I’m talking about the traffic! A quick Google search will show plenty websites selling used cars. Now, nothing is wrong with people buying a car – the problem comes when our roads cannot support the volume! When I was a child it would take 20 minutes to get from the Morne to Rodney Bay, maybe 30 minutes if there was traffic. The commute time has now doubled. The increase in cars also means an increase in accidents. People seem to have forgotten the rules and laws when it comes to driving. Everyone is in a rush to get to where they’re going – or they couldn’t give a damn about it and drive at 20 km/hr! You’re looking for an accident by driving so stupidly. Not only are you slowing all the drivers behind you down but also you’re also probably causing someone to have major road rage – another formula for a reckless accident.

Bus drivers refuse to pull to the side of the road properly to offload or pick up passengers – making drivers swerve into the other lane. Or they simply pull out on to the road, without indicating, without looking to see whether there are cars coming (which there probably are with the increase in traffic), and cause an accident, or at least nearly causing one. It’s no wonder the rest of the public can’t stand them and don’t give them a chance to merge into the traffic. The unfortunate truth is that we’ve lumped most public transport drivers together – the courteous ones and reckless ones – creating a broad stereotype of horrible, rude, and inconsiderate set of drivers. It’s a pleasant surprise to see a mini-bus indicate and wait to be given a chance to go, most times they don’t bother, let the indicator go once before barging their way in front of you, or merge when they’re indicating left!

The thing is, it’s not just taxi drivers, and the general public does it too. If they want to turn left, they pull out into the lane to block on-coming traffic in order to make a driver give them a chance to go. If someone coming the opposite way with a speed, even the speed limit – forcing them to stop suddenly is dangerous because they may hit you, they may be able to come to a stop but so suddenly another vehicle behind them may not be able to stop in time, hitting the first vehicle. You’re not the only person on the road – there are others too.

You’ll also see drivers suddenly stopping to let passengers off, even though there is plenty room on the side to pull over, they don’t want to lose their important spot in the line of traffic. Being just a few cars behind would probably send them mental, so no, they must hold everyone else up. Don’t get me started on people who like to take short cuts. Coming from Gros Islet going into Rodney Bay is a nightmare on an afternoon. Smart drivers decide to turn into Massy Stores Rodney Heights and take that road in front of Bay Gardens Hotel to come out of that junction. Hey dumbasses! You’re causing more traffic! Those who stayed on the main road have to stop to let you come out because you couldn’t stop to realize that doing actually causes the traffic to slow down more. Nope you can’t figure that out at all. Same thing goes on a morning heading up north. Drivers turn in by Corinth and come out by Bois d’Orange. And it’s not just one, two or even three cars – it’s seven and eight and nine! Again, my fellow genius countrymen – you’re slowing traffic down!

The main problem comes back to the infrastructure. We simply do not have the roads to accommodate the volume of cars. There either to be a limit to the number of cars per household or a limit to the number of cars being brought in to the island, and a serious plan on expanding our road systems. Rant done

Side Rant – I must have been sleeping when the memo went out to a number of St. Lucian drivers who decided that our weather so hazy that they need to put their fog lights on. Thanks for temporarily blinding me because of our really thick ‘fog’!